Monthly Archives: March 2006

When second-year rabbinical student Will Friedman sat down to review a passage of Talmud on Monday, he was greeted by a study partner who wore a scholar’s intent expression and V-neck sweater — along with a clerical collar.

Francis Deniau, archbishop of Montpelier, France, was one of nearly three-dozen Catholic clerics who spent the morning with students of New York’s fledgling, liberal Modern Orthodox rabbinical school, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah. There, for the first time, he found himself poring over one the Talmud’s most commonly studied passages, in the tractate Berakhot, or blessings.

"We believe that every word, every phrase in the Bible, has meaning and something to teach us," Friedman told his Catholic study partner. As an example, he cited the Hebrew word for "stand," which he said also can be understood as a synonym for "pray."

The archbishop smiled, his knees nearly touching the student’s. Nodding, he replied, "Jesus stood up early in the morning to pray."

In a groundbreaking move, the American Orthodox seminary had invited Catholic clerics to participate directly in the life of their beit midrash, the daily study hall that is an essential component of rabbinic training. The session, a stop on a three-day visit to New York that was spearheaded by Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger of Paris and by officials at the World Jewish Congress, ignored long-standing taboos in some Orthodox circles against teaching Torah to non-Jews.

"The question is, ‘How much interaction should there be?’" said Rabbi Israel Singer, chairman of the WJC policy council. For the first 20 years of Jewish-Catholic religious dialogue, "it was like one hand clapping — you couldn’t hear it." He added, "This is the most substantive of all these kinds of efforts."

The openness at Chovevei, which was founded by rabbis who argue that Yeshiva University has drifted to the right, stood in contrast to a similar session last year at Y.U.’s affiliated rabbinical seminary, during which Catholic clergy were asked to wear secular garb and their presence in the beit midrash was curtailed to five minutes.

At Chovevei, the room was a sea of head coverings: the yarmulkes worn by the Jews interspersed with a few flame-red skullcaps worn by Catholic cardinals. Accompanying Lustiger were Cardinal Peter Erdo of Hungary and Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard of France. Ricard, who had been promoted from bishop only the day before, was introduced with a loud chorus of mazel tovs.

"I should have been in Rome," Ricard told the audience through a translator. "The pope is to receive the new cardinals, but I wrote… him about this meeting in New York City, [and] he said, ‘Of course you can go.’"

Rabbi Avi Weiss, Chovevei’s founder and dean, worked to dissipate any lingering tensions in the room through a mix of hospitality, humor and candor.

During an open discussion following the text study, the rabbinical students struggled to find the correct appellations for their guests, settling eventually on "brother." In response, Weiss quipped, "My problem is that all the brothers in the Bible don’t do that well."

Weiss also obliquely acknowledged that he had had his share of serious differences with the Catholic Church, as when he scaled the walls at Auschwitz in 1989 to protest the presence of a Carmelite convent on the death camp’s grounds.

"We’re in a different space. We’re in a different place now," Weiss said.

In an address opening the program, Weiss asked the Catholic audience for "help in confronting the evil of antisemitism" — particularly in France, where most of the bishops were from.

Lustiger, who was born to Jewish parents in Poland but raised as a Catholic by a family that hid him during World War II, stressed the new understanding of the Catholic-Jewish relationship that has emerged since the historic 1965 meeting of the Second Vatican Council, when the church formally rejected the notion that the Jewish people bore collective responsibility for the death of Jesus. The French cardinal also spoke of a special bond that Catholics share with Judaism, above all other world religions.

In addition to the visit to Chovevei, the Catholic clergy used the three-day New York trip to tour Jewish sites in Manhattan, pay a visit to the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in Brooklyn and drop in on an advanced Talmud class at the beit midrash at Y.U.’s Stern College for Women.

The visit to Stern was a first for the Catholic clergy members, who, in their previous two visits — respectively in 2004 and 2005 — met with Y.U.’s rabbinical students, who are all male.

According to Pinchas Shapiro, the WJC’s director of NGO and interreligious affairs, it was Rabbi Zevulun Charlop, dean of Y.U.’s affiliated rabbinical seminary, who suggested the alternative visit to Stern. The meeting at Stern was not open to the press, and WJC and Y.U. representatives declined to comment on the event.

In an interview with the Forward, Weiss said that the open nature of the dialogue and study at Chovevei "is something that we do in an unapologetic way." Weiss questioned whether the 1964 essay "Confrontation," written by the late spiritual leader of Modern Orthodoxy, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, could still serve as a guide to Jewish-Catholic dialogue given changes over the past two decades. In the essay, Soloveitchik permitted interfaith dialogue, but not on matters of theology.

In the end, however, Weiss seemed eager to say that he was not violating the taboo against holding theological discussions with non-Jews. "This is not theological dialogue — this is a study session," Weiss said. But at several moments, as straight text study made way for free-flowing discussion, it seemed hard to draw a clear line dividing the two categories.

For example, one set of study partners, first-year rabbinical student Michael Katzman and French Bishop Guy de Kerimel, strayed from the talmudic text to a discussion about how the interpretation of texts — including New Testament passages about the Jews’ role in the death of Jesus — can change even after thousands of years.

Rabbi David Rosen, the American Jewish Committee’s Israel-based director of international interreligious affairs, has participated in a series of twice-yearly meetings between the Israeli Chief Rabbinate and Catholic leaders. Rosen said there is no problem with Jews and Christians discussing matters of faith, as long as they don’t debate them.

Without that distinction, Rosen said, Christians and Jews would not be able to talk at all. "When two people of faith are talking about the weather, they’re having a religious dialogue," Rosen said.

VATICAN CITY, March 28 (UPI) — The Vatican reports that support for the beatification of Pope John Paul II is coming from Protestants, non-Christians and even agnostics.

"They come from people who say they are agnostics, non-believers, even Muslims, Buddhists or Hindus," Joaqin Navarro-Valls, a spokesman for the Vatican, told the Italian news agency ANSA. "They say that they would like their testimony to be officially recognized by the church."

Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the Polish priest overseeing the process, told the newspaper Corriere della Serra that two non-Catholics suggested that the late pope had performed miracles on their behalf. An Anglican man reported that pain he had been feeling for a long time was relieved after he had a dream about John Paul, while an Orthodox Christian woman said that she believes intercession cured her son’s depression.

John Paul appears to be on track for a speedy beatification, the first step toward being declared a saint. Oder said that he has one potential miracle, a French nun whose Parkinson’s symptoms were relieved after she prayed for John Paul’s intercession. Miracles have to be certified by a medical board.

VATICAN CITY (AFP) – Pope Benedict XVI voiced his solidarity with all Christians "persecuted for their faith" and those who live in countries without religious freedom.

The Vatican announced Saturday that the pope had intervened in writing to Afghan President Hamid Karzai with an appeal for clemency towards a man facing a possible death sentence under Islamic Sharia law in Afghanistan for converting from Islam to Christianity.

The pope made his statement of solidarity from the window of his Vatican study during the Angelus prayer.

He said the Church was "close to all Christians who suffer persecution for the sake of their faith … including the sacrifice of those who have been killed".

"My thoughts turn particularly towards communities living in countries where religious freedom does not exist or exists on paper but is subject to numerous restrictions."

Benedict wished such sufferers "warm encouragement to persevere in the patience and love of Christ," and offered his "profound solidarity on behalf of the entire Church".

Vatican press chief Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement Saturday that the pope’s secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano had written to the Afghan president on behalf of the pope — in accordance with Vatican practice in diplomatic affairs — "concerning the fate of the Christian convert Abdul Rahman".

The ANSA news agency said the letter noted that human rights were enshrined in the preamble to the Afghan constitution.

A Vatican statement said the letter from the Holy See, written in English, had been motivated by "deep feelings of human compassion … for faith in the dignity of human life … for respect by all for freedom of conscience and religion".

Karzai is under extreme pressure from Western governments over the case of Rahman, 41, who faces the death penalty for apostasy.

A top government official said in Kabul earlier that Karzai had personally intervened and was consulting various government bodies to resolve the matter peacefully as soon as possible.

There was a "strong possibility" that Rahman would be freed Sunday after Karzai’s intervention, a senior government official said.

Karzai held a series of meetings Saturday to try to resolve the crisis, which developed after the Supreme Court said the convert should be put to death according to Sharia law, prompting an outcry in the West.

Rahman was arrested about two weeks ago after his parents went to the authorities, reportedly following a family dispute.

Last Tuesday US President George W. Bush expressed concern over Rahman’s fate, and similar worries have been voiced in France, Italy, Germany, Britain, Australia, Canada and Austria, as well as by UN and NATO spokesmen.

The Vatican has previously expressed concern over lack of religious freedom in certain Islamic countries.

The question of relations with Islam was raised last Thursday at a closed-door meeting of cardinals chaired by the pope.

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican’s foreign minister said Saturday that the “time is ripe” for the Holy See and Beijing to establish diplomatic relations, and confirmed it is ready to move its embassy from Taiwan.

However, there were some things that the Vatican will not give up, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo said, in an apparent reference to the Roman Catholic Church’s tradition that the pope names his bishops. China demands a say in the appointment of bishops.

“As is known, there have already been various contacts, with ups and downs,” Lajolo said in an interview with Hong Kong station I-Cable TV.

“It seems to me that the Holy See has clearly explained what it is asking for, what it is ready to concede and what it can never give up if it is to remain faithful to itself. In our opinion, the time is ripe.”

The text from the interview was made available at the Vatican during the ceremonies installing 15 new cardinals, including Hong Kong Bishop Joseph Zen, an outspoken champion of religious freedom in China.

Zen acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press that the appointment of bishops was the chief obstacle, but said he was confident a formula could be found to overcome the differences.

“They should not be afraid,” Zen said of the Beijing authorities, suggesting they held an outdated view of the Church as an “imperialist” institution.

Zen stressed the importance of continuing contacts with the Holy See, spurred by Pope Benedict XVI’s desire to reach out to China. “For a long time they had stopped talking,” he said.

Lajolo said it was clear that the spiritual needs of the several million Catholics in China are more urgent than those of the 300,000 Catholics in Taiwan.

“For this reason the Holy See has manifested its willingness to transfer the apostolic nunciature from Taipei to Beijing just as in 1952, on account of the circumstances of the time, it transferred the nunciature from mainland China to Taiwan.”

He added that the Vatican had communicated its wish to move its embassy to both governments.

Roman Catholics on mainland China were forced to cut ties with the Vatican shortly after the officially atheistic Communist Party took power in 1949. Worship is allowed only in government-controlled churches, but millions belong to unofficial congregations loyal to Rome. The authority to appoint bishops on the mainland has been a major obstacle in relations between the Vatican and China.

Lajolo said the Vatican does not intend to weaken its “bonds of friendship” with Taiwan Catholics and the entire population.

Last month, Zen said the Taiwanese were “psychologically preparing” for a change in their status with the Vatican.

A $1 million grant that would have helped repair the earthquake-damaged Mission San Miguel was rejected by the California Culture and Historical Endowment recently because the structure is owned by the Roman Catholic Church.

The grant money was to come from funds raised by Proposition 40, a tax passed in 2002 to help fund parks and cultural and historic restorations.

But the Friends of Mission San Miguel, the nonprofit group overseeing the restoration project, is not giving up on trying to secure the grant, said John Fowler, project manager for the mission.

Fowler is drafting a letter in response to the decision, asking for reconsideration.

"The endowment’s rejection is premature," Fowler said Thursday. "We don’t see it as a major setback. We just have to provide them with some information."

The decision came as a crushing disappointment to the California Missions Foundation, which has launched a $50 million campaign to help restore and preserve the state’s 21 historic missions, 18 of which are still used for religious services.

"That’s the mission that is in the direst need," Knox Mellon, executive director of the foundation, said of San Miguel. "This makes it even more difficult to swallow."

Endowment Executive Director Diane Matsuda, in her rejection letter to Fowler, said the decision was based on a recent advisory opinion by the California Attorney General’s Office. The opinion was not specific to the application from Friends of Mission San Miguel, Fowler said.

Church ownership of the 208-year-old San Miguel mission alone is enough to bar Proposition 40 money going to its restoration, Matsuda said. Proposition 40 money is overseen by the endowment.

"It is found that a grant to Friends of Mission San Miguel would have a direct effect of advancing religion, since the proposed project concerns a building that is owned by a religious organization (and) that is used regularly for daily religious services," she said.

But the mission is used for more than religious purposes, Fowler said, explaining that 90 percent of its use is for nonreligious activities.

Before it sustained damage in the 2003 San Simeon Earthquake, thousands of elementary school children and tourists frequented the landmark.

The missions were so crucial to the state’s development that elementary schools are required by law to include a course on them in their curriculum.

It will cost $15 million to repair the mission. So far, nearly $1 million in private donations has been raised.

Officials have asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency for $7 million. But it’s unclear when a decision might be made on that request, mission officials said, because FEMA is backlogged with work on other natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina.

The mission was designated in January as a National Historic Landmark, which will allow the structure to receive funding from the Getty Foundation and other organizations.

The mission is expected to receive a $300,000 grant from the state parks department that the Missions Foundation will use to match a federal $300,000 appropriation secured last year under Save America’s Treasures, a Department of the Interior program.

BARI, Italy, MARCH 19, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Abandonment to love and total self-giving to God was the path that led Discalced Carmelite Sister Elias of St. Clement to be beatified.

Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Sainthood Causes, on Saturday presided over the beatification ceremony in Bari for the nun (1901-1927) on behalf of the Pope. The nun is the first person from this city to be beatified.

Archbishop Francesco Cacucci of Bari-Bitonto presided over the Mass.

The archbishop quoted the Carmelite in his homily: "I understood that to lead souls to God, it is not necessary to do great deeds; rather, it was the immolation of my whole being that the good Jesus was asking of me."

"It is not possible to change the world without the Love offered on the cross," said the prelate.

This wisdom was the gift the religious left to the Church, the archbishop said. He described the newly beatified religious as a "small Host, white and pure, consumed by love, dedicated to listening to and contemplating God," nourished "by beauty and poetry."

Archbishop Cacucci addressed a prayer to Blessed Elias of St. Clement: "We thank you for your holiness, help us to run to heaven, like the prophet Elias, in a chariot inflamed by true love."

Speaking to Vatican Radio, the archbishop said of the blessed: "Lost in God, Sister Elias always lived, also as a lay woman, the primacy of God in her life, in the contemplation of the beautiful, in listening to the Word, in love for the Eucharist.

"In the Carmel, she followed the ‘little way’ of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, in hiddenness, ‘crucified’ with Christ, in the total immolation of herself for the salvation of souls.

"The first blessed of the history of our Church in Bari, Sister Elias exhorts us to ‘look on high,’ but in humility, in sacrifice. Above all, she teaches that holiness is also possible for us, no matter what our state in life. We must ‘know how to bloom,’ she said, ‘where God has planted us.’"

TIRANA, Albania – Albania’s largest Muslim group said Monday that placing a bust of Mother Teresa in a northern city would not damage religious harmony, rejecting claims from smaller Muslim associations.

The Culture Ministry’s proposal to put a statue at the entrance to Shkodra, 70 miles north of the capital, Tirana, was opposed the day before by three small Muslim associations.

Selim Muca, head of the Albanian Muslim Community, the organization representing all Muslims in Albania, said those objections were not the community’s official position.

"We respect the contribution of the distinguished figures of our nation, like that of Mother Teresa, who is the honor of our nation," Muca said.

He added that local authorities should not create flashpoints between religious communities.

Representatives of the Charity Islamic Association, Islamic Intellectuals and Albanian Muslim Forum opposed the bust, saying the religious situation in Shkodra was "not so calm" and the bust was a provocation. They said a cross in a nearby area was vandalized in January.

Mother Teresa, an ethnic Albanian, has long been revered in this mostly Muslim country. Tirana’s international airport and main hospital are named in her honor, and there is a memorial to her at the National Museum. An annex there is devoted to her.

Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2003, putting her on the road to possible sainthood for her life’s work building shelters, orphanages and clinics around the world to care for the downtrodden.

Born in neighboring Macedonia to an ethnic Albanian family, she went to Calcutta, India, in 1929, and began a life dedicated to helping the poor and infirm.

She first visited Albania in 1989, when the communists were still in power. Albanians were barred from practicing religion from 1967 until 1990, when communism ended. She died in 1997.

Albania, a predominantly Muslim nation with large Orthodox Christian and Roman Catholic minorities, is officially a secular nation, and relations between religious communities generally are good.

After the Ruins, 1906 and 2006: Rephotographing the San Francisco Earthquake and FireThrough 4 June 2006

On view through June 4, 2006, this special exhibition features approximately 75 paired photographs juxtaposing images of San Francisco today with photographs taken after the catastrophic 1906 earthquake, each showing that the two spaces and times are related. Arizona-based photographer Mark Klett (b.1952) has been photographing the American West for over 25 years. In his words, “The photographs are more than a reminder of the power of nature or a warning to arrogance in the face of it. I also think they are a way to contemplate how we understand time and our relationship to the past.”

Samuel Palmer ranks among the most important British landscape painters of the Romantic era. This exhibition—the first major retrospective of Palmer’s work in nearly 80 years—celebrates the 200th anniversary of his birth and unites approximately 100 of his finest watercolors, drawings, etchings, and oils from public and private collections in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and the United States.

See the online preview for more information about the exhibition, including sponsorship credits.

Some of the most daring and influential works by one of America’s great modern artists—Robert Rauschenberg—are on view at the Metropolitan. "Robert Rauschenberg: Combines" takes a rare and comprehensive look at the objects that Robert Rauschenberg (b. 1925) terms Combines. The exhibition, which includes 67 works created between 1954 and 1964, is the first to focus exclusively on this significant material.

See the online preview for more information about the exhibition, including sponsorship credits.

Hatshepsut, the great female pharaoh of Egypt’s 18th Dynasty, ruled for two decades—first as regent for, then as co-ruler with, her nephew Thutmose III (ca. 1479–1458 B.C.). In this exhibition, the Metropolitan’s own extensive holdings of objects excavated by the Museum’s Egyptian Expedition in the 1920s and 1930s will be supplemented by loans from other American and European museums, as well as by select loans from Cairo.

See the online preview for more information about the exhibition, including sponsorship credits.

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